In a statement on Wednesday, the companies announced that Allergan will pay $75 per Kythera share; 80% will be in cash, and the remaining 20% in new Allergen shares for Kythera shareholders. Allergan is a pharmaceutical company and the maker of Botox. By acquiring Kythera, Allergan adds an injection that treats double chin to its portfolio, called Kybella, the companies noted...

It's official: James Murdoch is the new CEO of 21st Century Fox. The company announced this in a statement on Tuesday afternoon. It was expected, after news broke last week that 84-year-old Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as CEO. He will remain as an executive co-chairman with Lachlan Murdoch, who currently holds that position. “It has always been our priority to ensure stable, long term leadership for the Company, and these appointments achieve that goal," said Rupert Murdoch in the statement...

Activist investor Jeff Ubben, CEO of the hedge fund ValueAct Capital Management, has made a killing on his investment in the Canadian pharmaceutical company Valeant. Ubben, who is known for being even more long-term than your typical activist, purchased shares in Valeant about nine years ago in a price range of about $11, according to The Wall Street Journal. Last week, ValueAct said it sold 4.2 million shares of its massive stake in the company...

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Senior executives of listed firms in China have stepped up the pace at which they are selling shares in their own companies, suggesting they may have doubts about whether their stock prices can go much higher. In May company insiders - senior executives or their relatives - sold a combined 1.68 billion shares, a tripling from April, and much more than in each of the previous months of this year, according to data compiled by Reuters...

Hedge fund titans Bill Ackman, Daniel Loeb, and Carl Icahn are all playing nice these days. The three high-profile activist investors spoke on a panel hosted by Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) at the New York Athletic Club in Midtown Manhattan on Thursday evening. It was the first time all three of them were on a panel together. A source tells us the three fund managers all "played well in the sandbox. " The source added, "They were very polite and complimentary with one another...

Along with others, we were scratching our heads on Thursday when Twitter announced a convoluted CEO transition plan with the current CEO exiting, the company's founder returning as "interim CEO," and the board conducting a search to find the new CEO. None of the public explanations of this plan made any sense, so we asked ourselves and a source familiar with the situation what was really going on. Here's what's really going on...

This week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne was searching for investors to help him strong-arm a merger with General Motors. While this might not be the best idea for Fiat Chrysler, Citi analysts say it's good news for GM investors. "It’ll be interesting, but arguably either outcome could end up positive for GM shares," says the report...

With Rupert Murdoch preparing to step down as CEO of 21st Century Fox, the next major question for the company is what happens to Roger Ailes, the leader of Fox News, the fantastically profitable cable network. Murdoch is handing the company to his son James and will remain as executive chairman. His other son, Lachlan, will be promoted to executive cochairman. At the same time, Chase Carey, the COO of the company also reportedly plans to leave...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Netflix Inc shareholders on Tuesday approved a massive increase in the number of shares the company is authorized to issue, the first step toward a possible stock split. Chief Executive Reed Hastings said at the company's annual meeting that management will seek approval from the board of directors "in due course" to pursue a stock split, Netflix spokeswoman Anne Marie Squeo said...

After years of using the term "shareholder value" to mean everything from stock buybacks to firings of entire company boards, America has totally forgotten what it means. We now have a perfect example of how the concept has gotten out of control. Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne is reaching out to all the muscle he knows — the big shareholders, the activist hedge funds — to see if anyone will help him force General Motors to merge with his company...

Salesforce's stock price is nearing an all time high, but shareholders don't seem too happy with the exorbitant pay packages its executives command. According to an SEC document filed Tuesday, nearly 47% of the total shareholders voted against Salesforce's executive compensation packages at its annual shareholders meeting held last week (the count does not include shares held by brokers who did not vote)...

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany's largest lender Deutsche Bank purged its leadership on Sunday, appointing Briton John Cryan as chief executive to replaceAnshu Jain just two weeks after Jain was given more power to reorganize the bank. Deutsche Bank has struggled to restore an image tarnished by a raft of regulatory and legal problems which include probes into alleged manipulation of benchmark interest rates, mis-selling of derivatives, tax evasion and money laundering...

Stock buybacks have surged this year, and in April, companies announced plans to spend a record $133 billion on buying their own shares. When a company buys back its own stock — instead of using that money to invest in equipment, employees, or buying another company — it implies that companies think their shares are undervalued and that there is nothing else to do with that money...

Chris Sacca, one of Twitter's largest shareholders, thinks there are a lot of big companies interested in buying Twitter. Speaking with Emily Chang at Bloomberg, he said, "I think Google would love to buy Twitter. " And if Google wants Twitter, then Sacca says Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook would "not let Twitter go to Google without putting in a bid, there is just no way. " Sacca says Zuckerberg thinks Twitter is blowing it...

Reese Witherspoon stood before thousands of screaming Wal-Mart workers Friday and led a "USA" chant at the company's annual shareholders meeting. She spoke lovingly of the world's largest retailer, saying Wal-Mart is "redefining retail" and delivering "miracles" to mothers all across the country with services like click-and-collect grocery shopping. Witherspoon, who was the host of Friday's event in Fayetteville, Arkansas, wasn't paid for her appearance...

Walton, 70, is part of Wal-Mart's founding family and has served as chairman since 1992. Wal-Mart also said it was realigning the composition of its board committees so that most of the independent directors will serve on at least two committees. Investors have been pushing hard for changes in how the world's No. 1 retailer governs itself, seeking to install an independent chairman...

(Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether some activist investors secretly acted jointly to target companies, one hedge fund industry source said. The SEC's enforcement division recently opened multiple investigations and sent requests for information to a number of hedge funds, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier, citing people familiar with the matter...

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires index, Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan, joins his mentor Sandy Weill as one of the few banking executives to become a billionaire. Bloomberg writes that Dimon derives a bit less than half of his $1.1 billion net worth — $485 million — from his stake in JPMorgan, with the rest of his net worth coming from an investment portfolio spurred by his sale of Citigroup stock in the 1990s...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Several hedge funds have asked U.S. department store company Macy's Inc to consider options for its real estate, including selling some major sites and then leasing them back, according to several sources close to the matter. The push is in line with real estate decisions by some other major retailers that have been beneficial to their stock prices...

Hedge fund manager Daniel Seth Loeb founded Third Point LLC on June 1, 1995 with $3.4 million in capital. The then-33-year-old had money from only five investors—all friends and family—and his own capital. Today, the billionaire activist investor oversees around $17.5 billion in assets. Since those early days, he has made a reputation for himself as a formidable money manager. As one fund manager recently put it, "he's one of the best investors of our generation...

Management at troubled spreadbetting company Plus500 got blasted by investors today at the company's annual general meeting in London. The Israel-based but London-listed company froze thousands of customers' trading accounts at its UK operation last week after a review by the financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority, found its anti-money laundering checks weren't up to scratch...

(Reuters) - Lowering interest rates around the world to boost the global economy has reached a point where it is now "quite harmful" to clients, including pension funds and insurers, BlackRock Inc Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Laurence Fink said on Wednesday. The "low rate environment is having a profound impact on how they're going to operate," Fink said at the Annual Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference on Wednesday...

SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Group's de facto holding company on Tuesday sought another cornerstone as it reconstructs South Korea's biggest conglomerate to smooth the path for management succession, offering more than $8 billion to buy an affiliate with a key stake in flagship firm Samsung Electronics...